One Crazy Fiber Lady

Damn you Knitter’s Review and your most recent newsletter.  Your last issue I could withstand as some nice blogger had already tipped me off to the new direct from the mills yarns at Knit Picks.  I’ve already acquired some of theirs aging nicely in stash so I didn’t have to rush off to check out the latest and greatest.  But this last issue with the promise of hand painted MERINO yarn for ridiculous cheap I couldn’t resist.  Off to HandPaintedYarn.com I went. 

Oh what gorgeous yarns they have.  The lace weight is simply beautiful and the price is extremely hard to resist.  And resist it I tried.  I put a couple of skeins into the cart.  Had a pang of conscience.  Closed the browser.  Opened a new browser window.  Put a couple of skeins in the cart.  Closed the browser.  Rinse.  Repeat.

I finally gave in last night after getting the twins down.  I bought.  My first choice in the lace weight sold out as I sat there with it in my cart looking for something else.  Oh well.  Second  choice did the same.  Phooey.  I did manage to do some damage though and got 3 different colorways in the lace and enough in the worsted to knit a sweater.

These are the lace (Alpine, Pearl and Calypso):

Here is the worsted:

When I got into the office this morning I figured I had to post about this and well, I need the graphics of the beautiful colorways.  Off to handpaintedyarns.com I went again.  While browsing to find the ones I purchased, I noticed my first choice was now back in stock?!  What’s this, my second choice now has stock too???  Sigh.  What’s a crazy fiber lady to do?  She places another order

These are again lace weight yarns in Red Pearl and Dusty:

Not a single skein of black yarn in the bunch!  I’m proud of myself for branching out from my old color choices.  While there were some gorgeous colorways in blues, I decided to pass on those for the moment.  I’ve seen enough blue with the EZasPi shawl.  I suspect I bought enough of at least one of these colors to do another pi shawl with it.  I got two skeins of each, except the Calypso.  If I make a smaller pi with either a holier pattern and/or a simpler border, I can certainly do it.  I’m still on the first of the 50g cakes of yarn now.

Recently there’s been some chatter about the FlyLady on the Spindler’s mailing list.  As an aside, unlike the list that shall go nameless that I mentioned recently, this one is a nice place.  There’s no flaming, no real arguing, no presumption of rightness and certainly no air of superiority.  I like this list and I thank the list mom for maintaining it (it really is the list mom who sets the tone for a list and this one is doing a wonderful job).  But I digress.  While I have no goal to have a home that is so clean that it is scary, one that is cleaner, tidier and less cluttered is definitely desirable.  I visited FlyLady.net and checked out what others where talking about.  Okay, so now I’m a flybaby.   

I’m probably going to either cancel the housekeeper entirely or move her to once a month.  Goodness knows I kvetch about her to my mother often enough.  While she is indeed doing the things I’d rather not do, she does some things really half-arsed and doesn’t think.  Like leaving a plastic bag filled with wet, dirty rags on the kitchen floor where the twins could get it.  Vacuum cleaner accessories are all over my house rather than being replaced in the ON BOARD slots for them, not to mention the general abuse my rather expensive vacuum has taken.   The toilet brush LEFT IN THE TOILET (ask me when I found this?!).  I got a new double-sided pillow top mattress this past summer and as a result, can only use the extra deep sheets.  I have two sets.  One blue.  One white.  Because of the warranty on my mattress, I keep a mattress protector on it, also white.  Well this lady doesn’t always take the white fitted sheet OFF the bed when she’s changing it and will put the blue one on over it.  I don’t know this until I’m pulling the sheets out of the dryer.  Oy.  She does like to pile and hang things on my spinning wheels as well.  Now I know what she’s done to my mother’s Lladro’s (hands broken off Don Quixote, etc) and I’m waiting for some serious damage in my home.  While she has been doing my mom’s 3BR 2.5Bath house for years, I pay her way more for my 4 room plus bath apartment.  I think I should can her before she does damage and just pay the new maid in yarn.  While I might not follow the FlyLady stuff to the letter, I can use it as a guide to be more efficient and the permission to take the baby steps and not get to museum show quality over night.  In the immortal words of The Donald.  You’re fired.